Lab

Internet security suites

The Internet is arguably the greatest invention of the 20th century, but it's brought with it a huge number of problems. The first six months of 2005 threw up a colossal 1,862 new vulnerabilities, and if you don't guard your PC against this constantly evolving threat you can be sure a hacker, virus writer or malware author will be lurking on the other side of your broadband connection to take advantage.

First, we had virus infection, which was eventually joined by the trojan and spam problems; now there's spyware, adware and identity theft to complicate matters. Anti-virus software alone isn't enough, a firewall won't stop spam, anti-spam software won't remove spyware - the list goes on.

You could install separate products for each, but then you've got system stability, application conflict and administrative nightmares to contend with. The Internet security suite, integrating several layers of security into a single easily managed entity, provides the best answer.

New products are popping up all the time, each making claims of greatness and promising peace of mind. However, there's only one way to find out which products really work: independent testing. And as the threats have increased, so has the toughness of our testing procedures.

To find out which suite is right for you, read on.